Quote: My first broody was a hatchery red that went broody at 7.5 months. I thought she was young, but I thoroughly tested her to see if she meant business.

-At night, I'd take her out of the nest and put her on the roost. Did that for 3 nights.
-During the day, I'd take her off the nest, walk out to the farthest area away from the hen house and deposit her on the ground. Several times a day. For 3 days. She kept coming back.
-Then I made her a nest in a brooding area where the others couldn't get in to lay eggs. Moved her into it in the dark at night. Watched her there a couple days to see if she stayed. She did.

This was last December. She raised 4 chicks for me in the freezing cold winter with no heat. Took care of them when they were "huge"...to keep them warm. It was comical to see those big kids still going under mom.

Same girl went broody in August. She now has 3 kiddos that she hatched and is caring for...2 weeks old.

*Introduction*
Just wanted to say hello!
I'm on the near east side of Indianapolis. My husband and I bought a house just a couple months ago, and a good friend gifted us Partridge Cochin bantam chicks as a housewarming surprise. We've busted our asses trying to get a coop built, but it's been difficult. We've sourced out much of our wood for free and my husband(thank goodness) is a woodworker! It's been slow going and I just want to bring my birds home. I find myself drooling and gawking other birds on a daily basis(someone help me!), but my flock will be full when I bring these home. Do any of you go to any Indiana swaps? It seems Craigslist is full of Roos and the same type of birds over and over.
I made a promise to myself about not purchasing straight runs, so as to prevent me getting stuck with too many Roos. I'm not against eating, but really? How satisfying can a Cochin bantam be??? Anyways...
Feel free to send me a PM, I'll try to post photos of the coop and flock soon...or eventually...I can't make any promises.
Ps, I'm also obsessing over Cayuga ducks.

Click to expand...

Welcome to our flock!!! I am new also. I have four Delaware pullets and am on egg watch 2013...Nothing yet but holding my breath as they are reddening up and practice squatting! I like Cayuga ducks too but live in a neighborhood so am very limited. Would like to get better (although not sweeter!) Delawares as well as possibly some Lavender Orpingtons and Dominiques.

Quote:John, she is sitting on 13. Is that enough? I gave her all the silkie eggs, most of which probably wont hatch because they are over a week old, but I didnt mark them when I gathered them to toss the older ones, so she gets them all. She is standard size and silkie eggs are tiny, so 13 isn't as much as it sounds lol. 9 Silkie eggs, an ee x wyandotte (that she stole) an australorp x wyandotte, and two others that I think are full wyandotte. It s her first time, so we will see what happens lol! I moved her to a bigger box.

I think we need a closed group fb page. It would be a lot more organized. Individual posts would have spaces for their own comments. I have a farm page if everyone wants to use it. But I think It would have to be set up as a group. It is really nice having you all on here though. You all have helped us through a lot of chicken issues.

This morning my lil guy had taken a turn for the worse. He was completely covered in maggots this morning. I thought I was going to die. He was in my walk out basement but apparently a fly made it in. I bathed him in warm water and wrapped him in a towel. Since he was wet I could get a better look at him. He had a laceration on his under belly near his vent that I could not see before because of all his fluffiness. It wasnt deep, but it was there and I missed it. My vet was awesome. I went to Hillview in Franklin. She has her own flock and I think that helps. She took a full flock history and then a history on my individual little guy that was down. After all was said and done and after looking at X-rays it did appear he had trauma to his spinal cord, probably from my other silkie roo. I had him put down. I feel horrible for it but I think I did the right thing. My vet made a call to purdue and they will do a necropsy free of charge (its normally $125 now, I don't know how she got this deal for me) to rule out other causes. I have a friend that wants one of my birds but I'm not bringing any birds in or letting them leave until tests are back. Better safe than sorry. I'm pretty sad. I never get used to losing a bird.

My first broody was a hatchery red that went broody at 7.5 months. I thought she was young, but I thoroughly tested her to see if she meant business.

-At night, I'd take her out of the nest and put her on the roost. Did that for 3 nights.
-During the day, I'd take her off the nest, walk out to the farthest area away from the hen house and deposit her on the ground. Several times a day. For 3 days. She kept coming back.
-Then I made her a nest in a brooding area where the others couldn't get in to lay eggs. Moved her into it in the dark at night. Watched her there a couple days to see if she stayed. She did.

This was last December. She raised 4 chicks for me in the freezing cold winter with no heat. Took care of them when they were "huge"...to keep them warm. It was comical to see those big kids still going under mom.

Same girl went broody in August. She now has 3 kiddos that she hatched and is caring for...2 weeks old.

the hen looks broody. I think 13 eggs should be a max and if you can candle some on night 7 to remove duds it might be a good idea since she is young. It has to be less work to hatch 7-9 eggs instead of 13.

The face book page sounds interesting, we could have a few more documents and photos could be organized if chosen to. The docs could be great info sorted by various topics including broody hen info, how to brood chicks, how to raise meat chicks, All kinds of great info sorted out. The the photos could be put into albums too. There could be a coop album, a run / yard album, a ff album, a chick / chicken album, and even chickens by breeds too for more organization.
The downfall is that it means more work for the admins and I'm thinking we could not link to it on this thread which might die out. BYC has rules about linking to other chicken pages if it takes people off of this site to a similar site. People get banned over linking. One of these banned people has her own forum site now.

I'm thinking it would be just as easy to ask her if we could have a state section and each state could have its own subsection with multiple threads on her forum. Sometimes threads get buried on FB and the FB search feature is not as good as a forums (no searching by date or username) Again though I'm not sure how we could quickly link others there since there are rules against linking to other chicken forums. For good reasons too BYC wants posters to stay here and support their advertisers.
Although maybe BYC would be willing to start a Indiana subsection under their where are you section. Then we could get organized on here and nobody would need links. We lose the FB docs and instead have to link to google docs but no members are lost and no BYC rules are broken or bent.

I will follow the crowd on this one though, so if a FB group is started I plan to join.

John had a good idea, but I will say it again guys. Shoe covers often do more harm than good if you are trying to control disease. They give a false sense of security.
Your best bet is to keep some cheap clogs and a foot bath pan with a 10% bleach solution for visitors. Please believe me on this.